Clock Tower

Archival 16x20 inch black-and-white fine art print on Epson Art Cotton Smooth 250 gram paper. NYC Village Halloween Parade street photography, Greenwich Village, 1982–86.

A sweeping bird's-eye view from a rooftop at 59 West Tenth Street captures the massive scale of the NYC Village Halloween Parade as it surges up Sixth Avenue in the mid-1980s. The iconic clock tower of the Jefferson Market Library serves as a sentinel over the sea of masqueraders, its gothic architecture standing in sharp contrast to the modern apartment buildings in the background. This black-and-white analog wide angle shot, preserved on classic Tri-X film, uses the natural city glow to illuminate the dense, moving crowd below. The historic Greenwich Village streetscape is compressed into a glowing river of costumes and light. It is a definitive portrait of the annual NYC tradition during its mid-80s peak, freezing a moment of urban celebration in grainy, high-contrast detail.